It’s funny what you miss about a place. I moved from Sweden to Australia 20 years ago. As somebody in my early 20’s I didn’t think too much about it, I didn’t know that I’d end up moving overseas permanently. It was an adventure with so much to discover – new people, new food and new places. I never really thought about what I missed about Sweden in those early years. As the years went by I started missing some things – mainly friends and family. And the food. And I missed it a lot.

Swedish cuisine is quite basic; most of the everyday food comes from generations past. Shaped by long winters and poverty, it’s food that will last and that is affordable. And I think it is its simplicity that I like. It is the everyday meals my parents cooked I miss the most. Give me boiled North Sea Cod and potatoes with mustard sauce, Falu Sausage Stroganoff, pytt i panna (Nordic Hash), pea-soup with ham or meatballs with lingonberry jam any day. But it is more than that, it’s the dark rye bread with hard-boiled egg and Kalle's Caviar, pickled mustard herring, liver pate, sour milk (better than it sounds) etc… The list goes on.

Initially, I subdued my cravings with the odd trip to IKEA. A tube of caviar (it comes in what looks like a tube of toothpaste – classy the Swedes are) here and there, reminding me of what was home once. I remembered a cookbook I used as a teenager. It was beige, full of stains and with pages almost falling out of it after years of heavy use. I had it posted to me. I tried to figure out what ingredients were called in English, googling extensively. It was all quite hard. Really hard.

The Nordic Cookbook Magnus Nilsson

And with the exception of making the odd dish when the cravings got too bad, I haven’t really eaten much of the everyday Swedish food I miss. Enter Magnus Nilsson (well, my discovery of him). In a mammoth attempt to capture the best of Nordic & Swedish cooking he has written two books so packed with yumminess they are hard to lift – The Nordic Cookbook and The Nordic Baking Book. And there I sit, amazed at enjoying reading a cookbook. He triggers memories and explains the background to the dishes. I’m reading a bloody cookbook and I’m loving it.

So here I am, intent on making Falu Sausage from scratch. I need to do this so that I can make Falu Sausage Stroganoff and remember the taste of a Wednesday night long ago. Kitchen fan screeching. Swedish national radio on in the background. What was once home, and I loved it.

The link has been copied!